Charcoal study of keys

10/09/2014 ~ Charcoal study of keys

During this session I studied a set of three keys, and produced a charcoal drawing of them. This is my piece of work.

This was the first time I had used charcoal so it took me a while to get used to using it, and although it kept smudging easily, I eventually got the hang of working with the charcoal and I was quite pleased with my drawing. I liked using charcoal because it allows you to get a range of different tones and to blend them together well. It was also quicker than pencil shading and I liked the style it created. I think I might use charcoal again, but will practice using it more by doing another drawing and experimenting with it so that I can achieve better results before using it more in my work. Something that I learned from this session was to make sure I start shading from the top left hand side and work across, instead of starting on the right because I kept smudging the parts that I had already done, and had to re do them. To improve, I could complete the rest of my drawing, taking more care and time, and also look at other artist's work who use charcoal.

The way we studied the keys, and the exercises we did before hand really helped me to think more about the shapes and features of the keys, which made it easier for me to draw them.

I looked at some artists that use charcoal, to compare my own work with theirs. My drawing that I produced looked very similar to the style of Jim Dine's charcoal drawings of tools, which I quite like the style of. I think that if my drawing was more refined and complete, and had more contrast, then it would look much better.Here are some images of his work.

http://x-hizashi-x.deviantart.com/art/Jim-Dine-Tool-Study-202350239

http://rawdesigns2.wordpress.com/category/jim-dine/

http://www.starr-art.com/exhibits/Dine/

Overall, I was quite impressed with how my charcoal drawing of keys turned out.